Casa Dos Rios

We first suspected that we had canine residents at Casa Dos Rios during the remodeling of our house. A small pile would appear on random doorsteps each time a change was made to said doorstep, such as the removal of a doormat, removal of concrete, repouring of concrete, addition of new tile, etc. It boggled the mind how many times the mystery animal could make deposits in a single night. One night, three presents were left for us! As the season progressed, our fox droppings began to show the telltale stains of the ripening Blue Elderberries (Sambucus mexicana) that grow in the creekbeds.

Our first sighting of our nightime visitor wasn’t until we moved into Casa Dos Rios in April, 2006. Shortly thereafter, we saw a lone fox running from our headlights when we came home after dark. But it wasn’t until the garden construction was completed in the spring of 2007 that we saw the female Gray Fox pictured (Urocyon cinereoargenteus). She was near the front gate and I realized, as she stood her ground while I got out to get my camera from the back of my car, that she had small pups in the drainage pipe that goes directly under the front driveway. I could hear the quiet squeaks as they communicated with one another. I waited patiently until one pup peeked out in curiousity before I snapped my picture, then left them in peace.

As the pups got older, we found that there were three pups and one adult female. We would see them earlier and earlier in the evenings as they attempted to satisfy their expanding hunger. And sometimes, we would see them early in the morning as well. After the planting was completed in June 2007 and the fence surrounding the house was completed, the foxes quickly dug under the fences in several places in order to continue to have access to the house garden. Apparently, the pups loved the blooming Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) as on several occasions I would find large stands of the tender flowers mashed onto their sides where the pups had come to roll and play. Luckily, it didn’t seem to kill the plants, but after the roughhousing, they weren’t the best looking flowers in my garden! However, I gave strict instructions to the gardener to leave the dugouts so the foxes could come in and play. We became quite fond of our fox pups and began to strain our necks each time we drove up or down the driveway after or near the nighttime hours.

On the occasion of my very first garden tour on August 9, 2007 to four very nice ladies with the California Native Plant Society, I was bragging about our fox family when lo and behold, there they were, rolling and tumbling amongst one another while mom looked on nervously. The ladies were thrilled and took several photos. As the summer wore on, mom began to wear out. We began to see her curled up in the sun resting without her pups. It was as though she was saying, ‘you’d be tired too if you tried to keep three pups fed all by yourself!’ Our sightings began to dwindle as the pups matured until we no longer saw the foxes for many months, and then only mom on the rare occasion-- until this spring.

This year, we didn’t see the pups until they were already about half size and this year there were only two pups. One was quite a bit smaller than the other. Sadly, the last time I saw them in about mid-July, I only saw two foxes which could mean that the smaller one didn’t thrive. We love our foxes and are proud that they can successfully survive and reproduce without treating them as though they are pets. They are wild and free as they should be and I sometimes picture them leaving the nest to migrate into Mt. Madonna County Park where they will continue to thrive and reproduce. (Casa Dos Rios Journal, Jan '09)

My involvement with steelhead rescue began shortly after we purchased our property in June, 2004. As the summer progressed I began to notice what I considered to be a strange phenomenon: Little Arthur Creek began to dry from the bottom up. By this I mean that the creek flow continued at the top of our property but stopped short of joining with Uvas Creek at the bottom of our property. The water seemed to just absorb into the gravel bars that cover this stretch. The drying out wasn’t a constant decrease, but seemed to decrease and increase, making it hard to predict when there would be water flowing all the way to Uvas and when it wouldn’t quite make it. As I watched this with interest, I began to notice the small Rainbow Trout swimming in the ponds that were isolated by the drying process.

I know Rainbow Trout because I grew up fishing for them in cool mountain streams. My dad taught me how to fish and our favorite family vacation was backpacking or camping in isolated locations. I took to fishing because I loved to lie silent and alone on remote creekbanks, peering into the water and willing the fish to swallow my Salmon egg bait. Sometimes I would jump into the creeks and fish for crawdads or just enjoy the shockingly cool water. Other times, I would just seem to melt into the landscape, imagining that the fish and I could communicate telepathically. The sound of the water and the freedom of the fish would lull me into a sense of intense oneness with nature and all of my troubles would fade away. The harsh, yet fascinating chore of cleaning the fish and preparing them for dinner in a tiny pan perched precariously on a small camp stove, coupled with the thought of another freeze-dried concoction barely missed, made the delicate flesh that much more appealing. Alas, college, marriage, children and life interceded and I’ve not fished since. But the memory of watching with fascination as the rainbow luminescense danced beneath the water and the temptation they provided is a fond memory. So I watched our fish with great interest.

Robert J. Behnke in his book, Trout and Salmon of North America, describes the anadromous (ocean going) form of rainbow trout that live in our streams known as steelhead (Oncorcynchus mykiss irideus) which attain a length of about 24-40 inches and 5-20 pounds, as spending half of their lives at sea, which makes them different from the type of rainbow trout that complete their life cycles in a limited area of a small stream and attain a length of about 8 inches (resident form). I remember with clarity the first time I saw one of the large fish in Uvas Creek swimming nose pointed upstream under some overhanging vegetation. I sat mesmerized, just as I did as a youth, waiting expectantly for each glimpse of its silvery back as it maintained position in the creek. Juvenile steelhead generally spend two years in fresh water (the parr stage) before smolting and migrating to the ocean at lengths of 6-8 inches. Most steelhead return to their home rivers for spawning after about 1-3 years of ocean life, far from shore. Unlike Pacific salmon, steelhead do not all die soon after spawning, but the rate of survival to repeat spawning is generally low, about 10 percent or less. The genetic differences between resident rainbow trout and steelhead are very difficult to determine and some hybridization occurs between the two, making any attempt to document a genetic or hereditary basis for steelhead versus resident rainbow trout very difficult, if not impossible.

I’ve heard two reasons for the name steelhead, both of which I find plausible. The first is that their heads are the color of steel when swimming under water and the second is that their heads are as tough as steel, which is necessary when they cross shallow sections of creek on their way to spawning grounds. Considering that I’ve watched 24-30 inch steelhead fight their way up shallow sections of Little Arthur with their backs out of the water, I can believe that they have heads as tough as steel, not to mention skin.

Having found this out, and also knowing that steelhead are an endangered species, I was extremely sad when I watched the fish become isolated in the drying ponds of Little Arthur in the summer of 2004 and die. I also questioned why steelhead would choose a creeek like Little Arthur. So when 2005 rolled around, I headed out with my fish net and put those that I could catch in a bucket and carried them to Uvas Creek where I released them. I believe I saved about 150 small fish that year (1-3” long).

In 2006, I had become friendly with two researchers from Cal State Monterey Bay that studied conditions of Uvas Creek for various agencies as a part of their studies. With their help, we once again tried to save the steelhead, this time using a shock system, where an electric wand is waved about in the water while the wearer sports an attractive anti-shock suit with a large (extremely heavy) battery backpack. This temporarily shocks the fish and they float to the top, just long enough to scoop them up with a net. This time, scientific measurements of length and other notations were made on each fish. This method yielded only about a dozen fish, partly due to the intense heat that summer and the quick rate at which the stream dried up.

Then, in 2007, while I was busy with my new garden, we had an early intense heatwave that dried up Little Arthur so fast that by the time I planned a rescue, none was possible - the fish were already gone.

Finally, I was put in contact with an energetic man named Herman Garcia, who runs a small non-profit called Coastal Habitat Education & Environmental Restoration (CHEER). CHEER’s objective is to clean up watersheds that once teemed with wild steelhead and to restore steelhead populations to renewed watersheds. After much discussion, Herman, his volunteers and I coordinated to rescue the steelhead this year on our section of Little Arthur Creek, this time, with the benefit of appropriate permits and training. In one day, we rescued 2,674 steelhead from the Casa Dos Rios section of Little Arthur Creek on May 20th, 2008 and to date, Herman and his volunteers have rescued over 23,000 steelhead and put them into flowing water either upstream in Uvas Creek (where the Santa Clara Valley Water District makes sure to keep a steady year-long flow of water below Uvas Dam) or downstream in the Pajaro River for larger fish. Some of the fish rescued were 30” long! Greg and I support Herman and his efforts. If you’d like to support him, you can contact him or send donations to CHEER at the address given in my resources section. (Casa Dos Rios Journal, Jan '09)

Have you ever wanted to do something good for the world? What if you could help to reverse global warming, reduce your water usage and positively affect the water tables in your neighborhood, increase and improve habitat for birds, fish and other wildlife and influence others to do the same? This was the motivation for the changes that occured at Casa Dos Rios.

The inspiration was a childrensʼ book that I used to read to my daughter called Miss Rumphius (story and pictures by Barbara Cooney). An old lady tells her life story to her grand-niece who is visiting her. She tells of the world she has traveled and the wonderful sights she has seen and of how she has now retired to a small cottage by the sea. In her spare time, and as her health has allowed, she has spread lupine seeds along the coast near her home. After years, the lupine has spread and is now enjoyed by many people who travel to the area just to see the brilliant lupine in bloom. In the end, she asks her niece what she will do to make the world a better place. The realist in me wonders whether these were lupines that were native to the area and whether or not she had permits to seed so freely along the highway! However, the child in me loves the optimism and simplicity of the concept. I vowed to myself that if I could think of a way, I would try to make the world a better place.

Deciding how to make the world a better place was tricky and took many years, but it finally came down to what my interests were. I am a birdwatcher and I love the hikes, camaraderie and excitement of finding and photographing birds. As Iʼm sure you know, many birds migrate. Without the habitat necessary, a hungry or tired bird may starve, freeze to death or fall victim to predators on their migratory route. Birds that donʼt migrate fall victim to the same types of dangers. The loss of habitat has led to the severe decline of many species and an overall reduction in the total number of bird species, not to mention other species. As a birdwatcher (aka birder), I decided that if ever given the chance, I would replace a non-native garden with a native garden, increasing the total habitat available for my feathered friends, and others who might enjoy the habitat. This also fell into place with another hobby of mine which (as you probably suspect) is gardening.

Life took its twists and turns, but as it turned out, my husband and I came to a point in our lives where we were able to move to a more rural area. Over a period of several years, we searched for a property which suited us both. When we found the property that is now Casa Dos Rios, we knew that we had found our dream home.

From my perspective, it was perfect because there was valuable riparian habitat and potential for a large (acre-sized) native garden around the house and other areas around the perimeter of the pre-existing cabernet sauvignon vineyard (totaling another acre) which could increase the habitat value by adding a greater variety of habitats in the area. I envisioned upper riparian, grassland, chaparral, oak woodland and redwood forest habitats added to the existing riparian habitat. And better yet, with the available land, I could really make a showplace out of it and attract others to come see my garden, perhaps influencing others to increase their use of native plants.

However, there was another incentive for us: the existing landscaping, beautiful as it was, required lots of water to keep the 1/2 acre lawn and other non-native planting beds green. Being on well water in the country means that during drought times, there may not be enough water for all, so this was a major incentive. I was excited by the prospect but nervous about the amount of work necessary to achieve my goals, never having had more than about 1/16 acre of garden space in the past, and much of that landscaped with large pre-existing non-native trees.

Bringing this vision into fruition took lots of planning, time and hard work. The planning began prior to the purchase of Casa Dos Rios, when I found an ad in Bay Nature magazine (they have a great new website- see the resources section for the info.) for landscape architect, Michael Thilgen of Four Dimensions Landscaping in Oakland, CA. When I contacted Michael, he suggested we visit some native plant gardens at shows sponsored by the California Native Plant Society, so Greg and I attended the Going Native Garden Tour in Santa Clara County and its sister show in the East Bay, the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour, where we saw many plants and habitats that interested us as well as several of Michaelʼs gardens. Later, we toured more of Michaelʼs gardens on a private tour. I also toured the California Native Plant Garden at the San Francisco Arboretum. At each location, I took pictures and made notes of my favorite plants and combinations of plants. Michael was finally selected to be the Landscape Architect because Michael specializes in native and low water-usage gardens and we liked the gardens he had designed. Even though he was unable to bid on the installation of the garden because of the distance from his Oakland office, he was excited to work on the design of our project.

In June, 2004 we bought the approximately 14 acre property southwest of Gilroy, California near the base of Mount Madonna in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains. It had an existing estate home which we thoroughly remodeled inside (read about the eco-friendly remodel we did in the Gardens and House section of the website). The remodel took about almost 2 years and we moved in in April, 2006. At the same time, we began the native garden planning. A list of plants and desired hardscaping features was given to Michael and we commissioned him to do a set of preliminary drawings with rough estimates of cost. Of course, the initial estimate was more expensive than we wanted, so we pared down our expectations and began again. After several passes, we had a preliminary list of what we would have in the garden.

While we worked on the remodel of the house, Michael worked on the plans. Due to the magnitude of the job, Michael suggested we split the work into two contracts, a hardscaping and a softscaping phase. This would allow us to move forward with the hardscaping phase while he finalized the plans for the softscaping phase. Finally, we were presented with a final set of plans for a hardscaping phase. The plans were sent out to four potential bidders and we received three bids by the September 2, 2005 due date. After careful analysis, we decided to work with Jensen Landscaping.

Landscape construction began in December, 2005 with the complete removal of all plants and existing structures. All arbors, pots, tiles, and other landscaping products were disassembled and donated to others. A casual red rock wall was disassembled and moved to the Upper Riparian Garden and reassembled as a large rock pile to provide habitat for lizards and skinks, which can be seen lazily basking in the warmth of a sunny day.

In the next Casa Dos Rios Journal, the garden hardscaping phase will be discussed in detail. A third article will detail the softscaping phase of the garden installation. (Casa Dos Rios Journal, Jan '09)